After losing the highly anticipated game of the season last week against the very talented Destrehan Wildcats, the Hahnville Tigers are on the road to redemption this week as they take on the St. Thomas More Cougars.

The Cougars are also on the same path after they lost on the road last week to a physical Catholic of Baton Rouge team. They will be facing similiar challenges on their home turf in this matchup Friday night.

Catholic of Baton Rouge and Hahnville share numerous similarities.

But one similarity that stands out is both teams are 2-2 through the first four weeks of the season.

Why is this important you may ask? St. Thomas More understands that records are very deceiving early in the season, especially after teams are increasingly scheduling tough opponents.

Hahnville is the main team with an intriguing schedule.

If the Tigers schedule were to be broken down and scrutinized closely, for the first half of the season, Hahnville have played teams that have either won the state championship (Jesuit), made it to the State Semifinals (Riverside), made it to the State Quarterfinals (Patterson), and advanced to the first round of the playoffs (Woodlawn).

Even though Destrehan is already in their district, they can be included as well since the Wildcats made an appearance in the state championship last season.

St. Thomas More is just another added challenging oppenent since they made it to the Division I State Quarterfinals last season as well.

Hahnville have played exceptionally well against all of these teams, only losing to Riverside and Destrehan.

And after last week’s emotional loss to their biggest rivals, Hahnville will be hungry to get back about .500 against the Cougars.

In an interview with The Advertiser, St. Thomas More coach Jim Hightower knows that the Tigers will be in full attack mode.

“They are going to be a hungry team a lot like we are,” Hightower said. “They lost to their rival Destrehan who is probably going to be one of the best teams in the state. Then the week before they lose to Riverside, another one of the best teams in the state.”

Just like last week’s matchup against Catholic, the Cougars will face another physical team at the line of scrimmage in Hahnville as well as big offensive lineman, a very physical up front, good running backs and a good quarterback.

The Cougars main task for Friday night would have to be stopping the explosive plays the Tigers are very much capable of swindling.

On the other side, the Tigers have to work on making sure the defense is sharper than what it was last week against Destrehan.

Before last week, Hahnville’s defense was the strength of the team, allowing just 28 points. Destrehan changed that very quickly.

In the first half, Destrehan’s Kohen Granier threw 5 touchdown passes and 4 of the passes came from the first 24 mintutes of the game, passing for 223 yards.

This was not the Hahnville defense we saw from the previous 4 games and going into Cougar Field Friday night, they can not afford to show any weaknesses.

If the Tigers can produce big plays, the defense can come up with some stops, and the running backs do their jobs, it will be a great night for Hahnville.

So which team will turn their redemption into victory?

We will find out Friday night.